Florida Gulf Coast Advanced To The Sweet 16, And It Was The Most Fun Ever (Well, For Most Of Us)

Glenn Davis

11:09 pm, March 24th, 2013

15 seeds have beaten 2 seeds in the NCAA Tournament before (twice last year alone, in fact), but it’s rare enough that Florida Gulf Coast beating Georgetown Friday on its own made the Eagles the darlings of the tournament. So after tonight, when they played what was essentially a supercharged version of their (already-electrifying) second half against Georgetown and beat San Diego State 81-71 (and would have been more if not for a flurry of late Aztec threes while the Eagles were mostly content to let the clock run down), becoming the first 15 seed ever to make the Sweet 16? Now they’re really America’s team.

And why wouldn’t they be? They’re not only on an incredible run, but they’re doing it playing an exceptionally fun style of basketball – a style featuring buckets like this:

And a bunch of highlights like this:

Leading to celebrations like this:

And this:

It was, in short, everything we love about March Madness – all the best of what it can be – wrapped in one big, goofy, hyper-athletic, deliriously happy package. It was impossible not to love… well, almost impossible:

@danwetzel fine line between having fun and showing up another team. Win with class. Doubt I’m alone in hoping this Cinderella gets bounced.

Thankfully, that guy (who, were he to try, would have ZERO substance backing up his awful opinion) was quickly shamed, but we feel we ought to do our part too. So to him, and anyone else who might have tried to find a reason not to enjoy an event that, provided you’re not a Georgetown or San Diego State fan, was impossible not to enjoy, our message: